News & Articles

Looking for news or information about LED Christmas lights, decorative lighting, or decorating with Christmas lights? We have a wealth of information about these subjects and we are constantly adding new content. Use the search function on our site to find older articles or sign up for our RSS feed.

Often times the nature of and location of a holiday display makes powering your Christmas lights with standard AC power difficult. In situations where it is not possible or desirable to power your xmas lights using standard power cords try using battery operated LED Christmas lights

There are a variety of different styles of Christmas lights. One of the most common specialized sets of Christmas string lights is the icicle light. The icicle light is a great decorating tool and can be utilized to provide great affects to a number of different holiday displays.

A new service industry has arisen to offer Christmas light installation services. Undoubtedly, this is a service that has been available for some time but has recently become more mainstream. We frequently provide Christmas lights to professional installers but I've never really taken the time to understand the business. We will be launching a Christmas light installers directory and felt that it was only appropriate to learn a bit more about these services and share that...

It is interesting to watch the progression and changes that a new product undergoes. LED Christmas lights are no exception. When LED Christmas lights became widely available most sets featured replaceable bulbs. Higher quality 1-piece construction sets were also available but the price point was much higher. However, there was a good reason for the higher price point: the sets with the replaceable bulbs wouldn't last very long. The sets wouldn't last very long because the internal components of the socket assembly were not corrosive resistant. I...

Environmentally friendly, green, eco-friendly we've all heard these terms all over the news and the televisions but what does it mean exactly? What are we supposed to do to? I mean we all have a general idea of the principle and an idea of what is and what is not environmentally friendly but sometimes we need a little more information.

Selecting a standard white Christmas light used to be simple--there was only one choice: white or clear. With the introduction of LED Christmas lights more choices became available and its become a bit complicated. Now consumers can choose between warm white, pure white, antique white, warm white frosted and many other variations or brands thereof. All of the new shades of white became possible because LED technology allows the manufacturer of the LED to apply different phosphor...

The engineer for the City of Fairbanks, Alaska recently conducted an energy audit and found that the cities' 2646 street lights cost $535,000 to operate each year. The number was staggering considering that the communities total electric bill was $880,000. Now the city engineer and other city officials are studying the situation and trying to determine what can be done to reduce the energy costs.

We frequently help our customers analyze the cost savings that can be achieved by using LED lights instead of incandescents. The calculations to determine the cost savings are not very complicated but it is a lot easier with a good conversion calculator handy. Our Energy Scrooge Calculator provides some interesting information about the benefits of LED lights but we've ever written about how to calculate the exact savings one can expect by replacing their old incandescent Christmas lights with LED lights. Here's the data you will need to perform...

We have received a fairly steady set of inquires about powering LED Christmas lights with DC power and decided it was time to do some research and provide some information to our users. As a starting point, most standard Christmas light sets are wired for standard household AC or alternating current. This means that they cannot be power with DC or direct current without some modification. However, there are some sets of LED Christmas lights that are battery operated and already wired for DC. We will be offering battery operated sets this fall.

UL or Underwriter's Laboratory is an independent product certification organization which creates standards and tests electrical and other products for many U.S. and foreign manufacturers. One of the many products UL certifies is Christmas lights or decorative string lighting. The current certification, known as UL 588, limits the end-to-end connection of string lights to just three sets. This standard has recently been revised to reflect the great differences between LED and incandescent lighting technology.